The Rich Get Married and Get Richer

By Belinda Luscombe

The wealth gap between married and unmarried people keeps climbing. Married people on average have a higher household income than the unmarried. There's robust academic discussion about whether this is true because richer, better-educated people are more likely to get married or because the stability of marriage leads to the ability to acquire more wealth. Recent studies have indicated that wealth seems to make it easier for folks to marry, and also that materialistic people are less happy in marriage, which all seem to suggest that money can't buy love, but it can buy you a whole lot of wedding.